109 réponses à ce sujet

[Tyrannosaurus Rex]

Spectre 117 wrote...

 Okay before you guys start the flame war (Which will be started eventually sadly ) for those who disliked ME2's story, what did you disliked about it?I mean i know it doesnt have a huge mystery like the first one but still i think its pretty well done especially due to the fact that those who enjoy the story can get deep in it with conflicts like the geth quarian war,the genophage and so on, for people like me who enjoy the story and universe i found it very enriching and deeper than the first one,yet those who just want tackle the "main story" can do that and just focus on killing collectors and stuff like that and whose to say that ME2 doesnt have its surprises i was quite shocked when i realized who where the collectors in the first place,so its true its not a perfect story but i think its as deep as the first one its just that getting deeper has to be on your own and not by the developers invisible hands(please post your opinions with respect as i respect all your opinions and would like that my opinion is respected as well (: )

Let's see.

Poor plot devices (Shepard's death, Shuttle scene)

Poor pacing.

Lack of villain (Harbinger is a joke, and I wouldn't call TIM a true villain):

Terrible cameos where Shepard acts like a brick (but there are decent ones too!).

4 annoying and obnoxious squadmates (Jack, Thane, Jacob and Grunt).

The derelict reaper.

THE human VORCHA REAPER!

I think that sums up why I loath ME2.

[FieryIceQueen]

Lizardviking wrote...

Poor pacing.

I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with you there. I just bought my xbox 2 months ago and I played both games back to back.

In my experience, Mass Effect 2 has much better pacing. Why? Because all of the main missions, not counting the N7 ones, have something to do with the main plot.

Sure, the plot is structured in a non-traditional way, but I think that was a good decision. Given the fact that it is the second part of a trilogy, the writers couldn't really conclude anything. The whole point of the second act is
to set the foundation for a fantastic finale. The writers could have just rehashed ME1, but if they had done that, the formula would have become very stale by the time ME3 came around. Instead, the writers took a risk and tried something different, and it paid off in spades.

The only poorly paced element of the sequel is the planet probing mini-game... which was necessary, but not nearly as entertaining as it could or should have been.

As for Mass Effect 1... there were five short story missions (Eden Prime, Feros, Noveria, Virmire, Ilos) and a whole lot of pointless filler - inventory management, teammate loadout management, painfully boring mako missions, etc. - that merely served to break the player's immersion in an overarching mission that is supposed to be very time sensitive.

Mass Effect 2 has numerous highly polished missions, and most of them were unique and interesting. Mass Effect had five polished missions (six, if you count the citadel mission at the end) - all of which pretty much involved driving the mako and then getting out to shoot something - and the rest of the game was... dreck.

Lizardviking wrote...

Lack of villain (Harbinger is a joke, and I wouldn't call TIM a true
villain):

You have a point here, but honestly, the entire series has suffered from weak villains.

The Illusive Man is the only quasi-villain in the the series who I find even remotely interesting. The reapers are the true villain of ME2, just as they were in the first game. And once again, I find them to be too clichéd and ridiculous to take seriously.

As for Saren, I think that the role of the fallen-hero-turned-villain has been done to death, and much better, elsewhere. The collectors are somewhat intriguing, but once you learn that they are basically just a bunch of husks, they become a lot less so. Still, I prefer them to the Geth. The Geth didn't become the slightest bit interesting until Legion discusses them in the sequel.

Lizardviking wrote...
I think that sums up why I loath ME2.

Loath? Wow. I don't mean to be a ******, but if you hate it so much why are you wasting time discussing it?

Modifié par Ma3j, 09 juillet 2010 - 07:55 .

[InvaderErl]

It just happens whenever there is a new game that comes out. I've got ME1 threads with people criticizing the story as the worst one Bioware has ever done, there were Dragon Age threads complaining about how linear and forced the story was, there will be complaints about Dragon Age 2 regardless of what it does

Their complaints are not invalid of course but the hate just seems far greater than it is, the vocal minority so to speak. People who feel negatively are more likely to make their voices heard - statistically proven.

Modifié par InvaderErl, 09 juillet 2010 - 07:38 .

[Raizo]

Short answer:
You spend more time recruiting squadmates and then gaining thier loyalty than you do dealing with the Collector threat. The Collector threat in return does not feel really urgent ( since they are only targetting remote human colonies instead of attacking the whole Universe ) since you very rarely intercat with them. To add insult to injury, even though it is obvious that the Collectors are working for the Reapers, fighting the Collectors doesn't really do much to advance the Reaper threat story that the ME trilogy is supposed to be about.
It's not that the writing in ME2 is bad ( it's not ) or that it does not have a few good plot ideas, they were just executed poorly. More time should have been speant building up the Reaper threat. If ME3 comes out and we have a completly different squad then the one we collcted in ME2 then it means everything that we did in ME2 was for nothing since the whole entire game is just about building a squad.

Modifié par Raizo, 09 juillet 2010 - 09:53 .

[Tazzmission]

Raizo wrote...

Short answer:
You spend more time recruiting squadmates and then gaining thier loyalty than you do dealing with the Collector threat. The Collector threat in return does not feel really urgent ( since they are only targetting remote human colonies instead of attacking the whole Universe ) since you very rarely intercat with them. To add insult to injury, even though it is obvious that the Collectors are working for the Reapers, fighting the Collectors doesn't really do much to advance the Reaper threat story that the ME trilogy is supposed to be about.
It's not that the writing in ME2 is bad ( it's not ) or that it does not have a few good plot ideas, they were just executed poorly. More time should have been speant building up the Reaper threat. If ME3 comes out and we have a completly different squad then the one we collcted in ME2 then it means everything that we did in ME2 was for nothing since the whole entire game is just about building a squad.

i dont think there gona create a new team unless how your ending is from me2. look i enjoyed the gain loyatly with crew story because how can you have a team without digging into there history? the only thing poorly that wasnt executed right was the collectors because they are suppose to be these highly advanced race and yet we face em what twice? all in all i still say it deserves an 8 because gameplay wise it is fantastic and the cool conversations with crew about there history is great.

[Cra5y Pineapple]

I prefer ME2.
ME1 was great but it was a bit stereotypical "Good guy vs. Bad guy" and the only enemy was geth with the ocassional human here and then *cough*enemieseverywhere*cough.* I did like how there was an actual Reaper though.

ME2 I like a bit better for the character drive which is amazing. You actually FEEL for these people now, they aren't just random people hanging around your ship like before. The enemies seemed more brutal, gave you a reason to hate them, posessing their minions and liquifying innocents. ME2 didn't have an amazing plot but the FEEL made up for it.
Oh, and because it didn't have a six hour campaign  seriously, I completed ME1 faster than Halo 3: ODST and that's a game with a three hour campaign that was worked on for about two months.

Modifié par Cra5y Pineapple, 09 juillet 2010 - 10:45 .

[TK Dude]

Because it didn't have good plot twists and it had many plotholes (Ask smudboy or zulu whether you like it or not)

The game is more character-driven than plot-driven, most of character-driven stories are not good.

Regardless, I still like ME2.

[voteDC]

Mass Effect was the movie.

Mass Effect 2 was the TV series spin-off.

Both had great stories but whereas the first game feels like a movie because pieces feed off each other, the second feels very episodic because of the way you recruit and then have to gain the loyalty of the squad. Also the mission over screens really do make me think of the end credits of a TV show.

I hope that made some sense because I swear it does in my head.

[Christmas Ape]

TK Dude wrote...

Because it didn't have good plot twists and it had many plotholes (Ask smudboy or zulu whether you like it or not)

Or not. If I wanted smoke blown up my ass I'd go buy a pack of cigarettes and a short length of hose. Yelling "I DON'T GET IT BECAUSE I WANT TO BE SPOON-FED" over and over does not an empirical proof make.

The game is more character-driven than plot-driven, most of character-driven stories are not good.

Matter of opinion. They're no Merchant Ivory film*, but for video game character stories they're generally pretty good if you kind of let them spin in your head outside of what you're shown on-screen, which is by necessity truncated to the big important points for the sake of moving the game's core plot forward.


* Not that enjoy them, but they apparently pull in good reviews for their characters.

[Barquiel]

I think the plot wasn't bad up to Horizon
and then...

Kelly:
Miranda would like to see you
Jack would like to see you...
some revenge stories, some family problems

Every character gets his 15 minutes of fame, and is quickly forgotten after his/her loyality mission. That's not character driven.

[Tyrannosaurus Rex]

Ma3j wrote...

I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with you there. I just bought my xbox 2 months ago and I played both games back to back.

In my experience, Mass Effect 2 has much better pacing. Why? Because all of the main missions, not counting the N7 ones, have something to do with the main plot.

Sure, the plot is structured in a non-traditional way, but I think that was a good decision. Given the fact that it is the second part of a trilogy, the writers couldn't really conclude anything. The whole point of the second act is
to set the foundation for a fantastic finale. The writers could have just rehashed ME1, but if they had done that, the formula would have become very stale by the time ME3 came around. Instead, the writers took a risk and tried something different, and it paid off in spades.

The only poorly paced element of the sequel is the planet probing mini-game... which was necessary, but not nearly as entertaining as it could or should have been.

As for Mass Effect 1... there were five short story missions (Eden Prime, Feros, Noveria, Virmire, Ilos) and a whole lot of pointless filler - inventory management, teammate loadout management, painfully boring mako missions, etc. - that merely served to break the player's immersion in an overarching mission that is supposed to be very time sensitive.

Mass Effect 2 has numerous highly polished missions, and most of them were unique and interesting. Mass Effect had five polished missions (six, if you count the citadel mission at the end) - all of which pretty much involved driving the mako and then getting out to shoot something - and the rest of the game was... dreck.

So killin random mercs Illium or some random planet felt connected to the mainplot? By the time I was doing the last loyalty missions, I was begening to lose intrest in the whole ordeal. Which is not good at all. And while you mention that the gameplay in ME1 bogged things down, which is true. I still think it wasn't enough to ruin the whole story for me. Also wether or not you like Saren he stilled did his job as a villain okay, he gave the enemy a face so to speak.

As for why i'm still posting on this forum you might ask?

Because I still care about Mass effect as a series?

[Kronner]

I find ME2 superior to ME in almost every possible way. Story in ME2 is great, though not as good as ME1. Also, the recent boom with all the ridiculous "plot holes" threads is just annoying. Nitpicking at its best and calling whatever one does not understand a plot hole. I like characters in ME2 much more than in ME1.
I dislike Tali so no change there, Garrus is ok in both games, Kaidan and Ashley are the worst characters for me. Liara was nice and Wrex was the best. Both have good cameo in ME2. Mordin is pretty close to Wrex, I like all other characters too, though Jacob is dull and Jack psycho b1atch. Legion, Mordin, Miranda, Zaeed, Thane, Kasumi, Samara, Grunt - all awesome characters.

Modifié par Kronner, 09 juillet 2010 - 11:30 .

[Tyrannosaurus Rex]

Maiq the Liar wrote...

M'aiq thinks that the plot of ME2 is filler-arc-a-rific.

M'aiq.... Isn't that some NPC from the elder scrolls series?

[FuturePasTimeCE]

Maiq the Liar wrote...

M'aiq thinks that the plot of ME2 is filler-arc-a-rific.

how do you pronounce your name? is it M'aiq? m-a-eq? 

[uzivatel]

ME2 is imo better game, as skeptical as I was, I really think its better than ME1. Sure, there are some things I like better about ME1 (like companions), but there are good reasons ME2 got better reviews.

I guess some people expected ME2 to be carbon copy of ME1.

[NephilimNexus]

I'm going to do my best to avoid spoilers here, so forgive my being a bit vague on details.

In ME1, everything is a plot mission.  Picking up Ashley on Eden Prime is side effect of the actual mission.  Rescuring Liara, investigating Ferros & Novaria - again, plot missions.  Virmir is a plot mission.  Illos is a plot mission.  The showdown is a plot mission.  Seven very long & very involved main plot missions, not counting all the Citiadel scenes with dealing with the Council and their idiocy.  One DVD, about 8 gigs  on Xbox360.  Liara's rescure is the only mission that focuses on recruiting a character, and even then this has something to do with the main plot.  Garrus, Wrex, and Tali get added to your crew without any side missions needed.

So we're got at least seven dedicated plot missions and
one character mission which is also doubles as a plot
mission.

So yes, ME1 is story driven.  Character development is something that orbits the main story.


Now compare that to ME2.  There is the Lazarus Station, which is really just a tutorial.  Then there is Freedom's Progress & Horizon.  You have the IFF mission and the Colector Ship mission.  After that it's time for the showdown.  The entire plot consists of only five missions.  Yet it's x2 DVDs (about 14gigs on Xbox360). 

Why?  Because of the character missions.  If you get Kasumi & Zaeed's DLC it only gets longer, too.  Two for them, plus two more loyalty missions for Miranda & Jacob.  Four so far.  Now add two more missions each for Tali, Samara, Garrus, Mordin, Grunt, Legion, Jack, and Thane.  Sixteen plus four and you now have twenty character missions.  

Again: Five plot missions and twenty character missions.  Furthermore, none of the character missions have any direct affect on the plot at all (though speculation exists about Kasumi's mission, nothing has been proven).  We could say that Legion's mission might affect the plot for ME3, but in ME2 even this has no real effect on the Geth seen in other ME2 side missions.

Have you ever had a favorite TV series that kept adding new characters every season to "keep it fresh" until it finally sank under the weight of trying to fit so many different chacters under one roof and try to get air time for them all?  (Think "Firefly")  ME2 skips directly to that final season before cancellation. 

Seriously, if Bioware makes any more DLC we're going to have to start stowing new crew members in a cargo trailer hitched to the back of the Normandy, because there is no more room inside.

The icing on the cake is that you can't just skip it.  Plot missions only unlock after a certain number of character missions are done.  The entire success or failure of the showdown mission is based entirely on completing every character mission.  

So let's go back to that old Star Trek episode where Spock gets the Vulcan seven-year-itch and really needs to go have some coffee with his estranged wife back on Vulcan.  Kirk decides "what the heck, why not?" and sends the Enterprise (and it's entire crew) off to go do this personal favor for his best buddy.  As a stand-alone episode, this isn't so bad.  In fact, it's a pretty good episode.

But now imagine that they tried to insert the entirety of this particular episode inside of Star Trek movie.  You know, just somewhere in the middle splice the movie film in half and jam this extra half hour into it, just for fun.  Now the audience is scratching their heads.  Okay we see that you've got a problem, Mr.Spock, but right now Khan is on the loose with the Genesis Device, can't it wait?  Hello, real movie trying to happen here?  

Now imagine that they did this twenty times in a row.  Your two hours of Wrath of Khan action has just had an extra ten hours of character drama smashed into it like a tractor truck trying to park between two compact cars.  It's now got more emotional baggage than a 350lb "Twilight" fan listening to Portishead on repeat and it's dragging the whole show down with it like the bloated loose anchor that it is.

I'm not opposed to content, but I don't like it being forced.  There were dozens of side missions in ME1 & ME2 that did not revolve around the main plot.  But you don't have to do side missions and there is no penalty for not doing them.  There are penalties for not doing every last one of the character missions, and that does not seem fair, especially considering that they outnumber the actual plot missions by four to one.

[Mr.BlazenGlazen]

Its an unappeasable fanbase really. They hate the game but they still love it for the most part. People say that they sacrificed the plot for more gameplay, but if bioware sacrifices a little bit of the gameplay to fix the plot people would still have a reason to hate it.

[biomag]

"Plotmissions", "Charactermissions".... wow... somehow now all makes sense... yeah...





But to speak frankly it has not point at all how you name it. Not understanding that those "character missions" are part of the story and the main focus of the story is a big failure. This game isn't about the reapers. They have just a small role in giving the whole story a point why Shepard is doing all of this. "Character missions" are the story of the game. Introduction and additional information about those who should end the reaper threat.



You may not like the concept, but saying "it has no story - buhu" means you don't understand that "story" isn't distinguished by "plot" and "character" related content. Yes, you can distinguish them, but to what point? Just to give it a name. It doesn't change that both parts interact with each other and need each other. Ever thought about what effect the final mission would have had if there wasn't such a focus on characters? *Bang* first guy dead... "What was his name?" "Sorry, Shepard can't remember he was just standing in the same bar as we hunted down Fist"... *next character dies* "Oh, sad... she had nice breasts, but I can't even say if she could speak... was she with Cerberus? Well, who cares..."



The whole climax playing the suicide mission is built on you knowing those guys and your failing/success at keeping them alive fleshing out your own character showing what kind of leader he is. So saying they are not plot heavy missions is simply wrong. You keep starring at the big picture "the reapers" and ignore that they aren't more than just the motivation for this part of the trilogy. You can't keep adding 3 times the same story (Shepard defeats a reaper, Shepard defeats another reaper, Shepard got them all, YES!) as the story will become just boring (see Lord of the Rings part two and three, they basically are the same story: heroes defend a stronghold while big menace is coming, holding it well, then too much time passed and they are at the bring of loosing, suddenly a missing hero comes with an army and saves the day, while Frodo is still walking somewhere on his quest since the end of the first part).



As I said, you can like the story telling or not, like you can enjoy a book or not, but don't keep whining that ME 2 has no story. For those comparing it to Firefly, think about how little emotion would have been in the whole story, if they didn't flesh out the characters and the ship first. Many may not realize how important characters are to attach you a story. Yes, there is a dozen at ME 2 and you may say they are too many, BUT: 1. 6 lads stopping the whole collectors threat and taking the whole base is strange 2. they gave you 2 of each type so that you could choose who you take on a mission based on what character you like more not just class like at ME 1 (I hated Tali, but for tech I had to take her) 3. you can see on this boards how well written they must be to get such an attention from the fans, love & hate -threads are the outcome of a lot of hard work by the authors of the story.



As last point... as there was complaining that you had to do all missions for a perfect ending... sorry, but that's just whining about having no shortcuts. I am happy that there is a punishment for not doing everything that it takes to be completely successful. That's a real story and a real world if you get punished for not doing your homework and missing out parts of the MAIN game. They might be voluntary, but they are key for success. You can like it or not, but you can't complain that there isn't a plot to hide your disinterest for the game as you don't like it.

[Christmas Ape]

It wasn't a seamless continuation of Shepard's Magical Journey Where Almost Everything Goes Right.

The enemy shows up, reminds you that they're bigger and badder than you are, kicks you in the junk, takes your hat, and makes your life suck. You spend the game getting back on your feet, figuring out who to kick back, and getting to know the people crazy enough to come with you (within the limits of a non-dating-sim video game).

Nobody likes it when bad things happen to a hero they identify with, and who do we identify with more than our in-game avatar?

[Orfinn]

Here we go again... I knew this would come up. Just like with every other game or movie trilogy. Because one chapter/part dosent seem as "good" is because you who didnt play the first part should really do that first, to get the bigger picture of whats really going on in the next. And that whats exactly what all should do, look on the big trilogy picture, not judge the whole saga like dirt just because one part werent as fulfilled as the others.

I gotta say both ME1 and ME2 were great and bad in their own ways, but I try to see the big picture and the ME trilogy are really shaping up to be one heck of a sci-fi trilogy, no matter the media genre.

[Tyrannosaurus Rex]

Christmas Ape wrote...
Nobody likes it when bad things happen to a hero they identify with, and who do we identify with more than our in-game avatar?

Okay? I actuelly looked foward towards to the whole "dark second act" and actuelly thought that Shepard getting killed in the start sounded like a good idea, it would show that the collectors truely are dangerous and the stakes have been raised. Then I played the game and realised that the whole thing was nothing more than an excuse to reset the story and preserving status quo on certain aspects.

Also it's hard to relate to a character when they don't give a damn about anything.